Guitar Gear Forum

So how do you go about copyrighting say a bands name? And how do you copyright any material you have written/recorded?

Copyright on songs as your intellectual property exist as soon as you create them. All you need to do is make sure you can prove you came up with it first. Should be quite easy if you release a recording of it through a distributor, label, online company etc.

An interesting side note is that the law only considers the lyrics and melody to be "the song". There's a grey area if it's a melodic lead instrument that provides a recognisable part of the song, but things like chord sequences, drum beats, overall arrangements, aren't important in the eyes of the law.

As for the band name, I think you'd need to make it a registered trademark. But if you get the various social network and .co.uk + .com domains for yourself, anyone who tried to steal your name would have a hard time going anywhere with it.

Recordings? If you recorded it, you own the recording. If it's your song then that's as far as it goes. If it's someone else's song then you need to pay them royalties. If it's your recording but you use a sample of someone else's recording, same deal.

How would I go about registering a band name?

The only way to trademark a name is to contact a government agency in charge of trademarking. Be prepared to spend a few hundred dollars (or pounds). It's pretty much not worth it unless your band is definitely going to be doing national and international touring.

i had a question about this yesterday: what happens if you chose a band name and its taken already, but by a complete non-music related company?

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Good question...

I'm pretty sure if it's a registered trademark with someone else, you can't use it. If it's not, it's fair game. But do you want fans searching for you to get confused between you and a paperclip company, for example?

Conventional advice was to make a recording (even a rough guitar/vox 1 mic in the room recording), put it in an envelope, list of contents/song titles on outside of envelope, with names of songs/writers, lyrics, anything you are claiming you are responsible for (such as a band name), inside the envelope and on CD, go to PO, get them to seal it (some PO's still have wax seals) record the delivery (keep recorded slip) then mail package to yourself, keep it somewhere safe and unopened/sealed.

It isn't actually copywriting but, if any dispute arises, it will stand up in court, and is up to someone else to prove their ownership before the date on the envelope.

Y0UNGBL00D wrote:i had a question about this yesterday: what happens if you chose a band name and its taken already, but by a complete non-music related company?

It should be fine, unless your band gets really big and there is a conflict of interest. But you can technically have the same name as a non-competing business.

How many places named say, "Mike's" are there in the USA? Mike's Deli, Mike's Auto Repair, Mike's Plumbing etc... it's fine, but if your band gets so big people start to think the other business is related to your band (or vice versa) there could be a dispute in court.

Good thread

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Yes there is some good info in here.